The Four Color Media Monitor

CBR interviewed Jurgens about his past career, with creations like Booster Gold and such, and if there's something I find disappointing, it's that he still stands by the story that ruined sanity in the marketplace:

On looking back at "Death of Superman" and whether he's proud of it being his legacy: Yes. And for a lot of different reasons, actually. One of the things was I think that if you take "The Death of Superman," "Return of Superman," "World Without a Superman" -- the whole three-chapter story and put it together, I think it was a very, very credible piece of work, just in terms of the story we told. At the same time, to me, I do not ever do a con, I never do a show without three people at least saying -- they'll put down "Death of Superman" and say, "This is what got me started reading comics." I think it did sort of [serve] as this incredible entryway for a lot of people into the business as a hobby. They came in, they started reading, and -- I think in the '90s -- we had a certain sense of energy happening throughout all the companies. You had Image, you had Marvel, you had DC and Valiant and all the stuff they were doing that we're kind of lacking a little bit today -- but yeah, it was a great time.

Not at the Big Two it wasn't. Fewer and fewer titles/stories were worth the effort, and a decade ago, that was the last straw for me. Superman's death in 1992 was not a credible story, and not because the Man of Steel didn't stay dead, but because they had to put him in death limbo and go through with such a farce to begin with for about a year. There's plenty of pluses Jurgens has as a writer, and his early work creating Booster Gold should count, but killing off Superman momentarily in the manner he and his co-writers did was a very dumb publicity stunt.

If he can't go on stage at the conventions without some readers backing him up as he talks about the tale, I think that suggests he realizes how little credibility the story had, and how lazy it was to send Supes into limbo at all. If they'd done a story where he went missing and nobody knew where to find him for at least a year, that might've had more credibility, and ensuing stories focusing on his substitutes could've been more interesting than they were. Heroes going MIA is probably an idea that's put to use far, far less than killing off heroes, for long and short periods. Jurgens' involvement in Zero Hour, which I believe he also doesn't regret, is another terrible blemish on his portfolio. Has he ever considered how many people got tricked into buying something that'll never have serious value, neither artistic nor monetary? And nobody should've had to be cheated with such a meaningless, futile exercise. That kind of stunt does not help his reputation any more than it does DC's management.

Labels: conventions, dc comics, golden calf of death, Superman, violence